Video: This IronFall Tech Demo is Rather Impressive

Recently we've brought you some coverage of IronFall, a third-person shooter from developer VD-Dev that's making its way to the 3DS eShop. It's a project with plenty of ambition, including a goal of running at a silky smooth 60 frames-per-second.

While screens and bold declarations have brought some interest to date, the studio has now released a technical demonstration video to show off the graphics engine for this title in action. It aims to highlight key features that will help the title stand up as one of the most graphically impressive on the 3DS.

You can check it out below and, certainly, it shows some impressive effects and scenarios. Here's hoping the actual game in development will meet expectations next year.

Welsh ex-pat Tom is responsible for the day-to-day running of the site. He's the guy to thank for the generally brilliant nature of the content which massages your eyeballs on a daily basis. Also has an unhealthy obsession with all things Bowser.

Seriously, what is the point of a game designed to look great on 3DS? It's always going to be overshadowed by games on other platforms.
For me, this kind of game needs online multiplayer. But, with it pushing the 3DS hardware so much, I doubt it would be possible to deliver a satisfying experience.
I would much rather the devs focused on delivering a fun FPS to a 3DS market sadly lacking of such.

Though I don't usually say this, I'm interested in this game by graphics alone. I mean, this is miles ahead of what I had thought to be the maximum possible graphics/processing power of the 3DS...and we're only 3 years in! They managed to pull of some graphically impressive DS games after nearly 10 years; and on 3DS we've already got this? I'm very optimistic about where the 3DS is heading!

Gears is totally an inspiration for this. I love it! I hope we get a great online mode to go with this game, but I'm totally satisfied with a good single player experience too.

I'm hyped for this and hope it's a 10/10 or 9/10. Even though it will realistically be like a 7 or 8/10. There's always room for improvement and I want to support these devs for doing what no one else is on the system.

Hell, I would take a Metroid Hunters if Nintendo made it, but since it's not, then I will gladly invest in making this the flagship shooter on 3DS.

I expect it will be a short but sweet eshop title with a reasonable pice in a hope that other companies will buy and use the game engine for much bigger retail titles.I dont mean this in a nagative way, the engine looks amazing and as im a fan of the over the shoulder gears of war shooter style game rather than first person shooter games I cant wait to see how this evolves, I just imagine that with so much effort going into the engine that the game may be a little shallow. Still excited though!!!

I mean, yeah yeah, its got the power, hooray!
But... Is it just gonna be a 3rd-person cover based shooter?

I don't care how it looks, I don't want a cover shooter. If its gonna look good, it can be unique too, right?

I'm not gonna condemn it right now or anything (because you known its just early stuff), but just because the 3DS doesn't get many 3rd person shooters doesn't mean making a bland one will fill the void.mourns over MML3 and EX Troopers

I hope there a multiplayer because this game is looking awesome and would be nice for some replay value, but if I had to point out something bad it would be that firing the machine gun has a steady light like a flash light and not static.

Graphically impressive, and I'll need to see gameplay, but my initial impression is that it isn't for me. Which is fine; I'm sure more people like shooters like this than what would appeal to me, so I will fault nobody for targeting them.

@C-Olimar "IronFall has no support for online multiplayer. We are a very small team and were working on the game since more than 2 years now, that will be too much work for us now. But if the game is a success we could start working on this features." That's what the developer said in an interview. They didn't confirm local multiplayer, but they denied online, though the excuse is only because they're a small team. So, hopefully there's at least local multiplayer.

But yes, a fun FPS for 3DS would be great. It doesn't even have to be graphically impressive (just look at Team Fortress 2, it's more stylistically impressive than graphically). As far as I know, the only FPS confirmed for 3DS is Renegade Kid's Cult County, but I'm sincerely doubting that it'll have any multiplayer since none of RK's previous FPS games ever did.

@5onyThanks for the multiplayer info. I hope this game sells enough for them to try hard on getting an online mode going. Even if it's DLC(reasonable priced, of course), I'm sure whoever buys this would cough up the cash to take the game online.

This is assuming the game is good in the first place, but I'm assuming it is based off of how hard they say they're working.

It's unfortunate that there won't be online multiplayer... Seeing all those AI moving made me think that this game's biggest draw would be multiplayer.. It looks great regardless! Definitely getting my money!

@AVahne If they do and it is really good technically I will probably get it. (Sad that Nintendo has spoilt so many of their main games with 30fps. If they had just waited until they could do them properly the end result would be much nicer).

I'd love to see see a physical release for this, if it has a decent length story and runs without a lot of bugs, I can see serious potential. Add in multi-player and you may have Golden Joystick award for best handheld for 2014. I can't wait to play this!

Hhhhmm, visually impressive, but what about AI? That long line of enemies proved it can handle their animations on mass at least, but they were either on a set path, or just playing an animation. The AI can be a drain on processing power too, and has more of an impact on the actual gameplay.I have my doubts that they'll be able to keep the graphics like this, that 60 fps, and have a fun AI, but a bit of a drop in frame rate won't be bad really. Really though, it's too early to tell anything about the game.

@WesFX
Well, it's their goal to achieve 60FPS with 3D on w/o sacrificing AI or the framerate. They said they may limit it to 30FPS in 3D if they have to, but it hasn't been confirmed whether that will be necessary or not.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was merely reading what they had said in the past article. They said it runs 60FPS in 3D, but again, if they need more AI or something else that would lower the framerate, they'll limit it.

EDIT: It's not exactly set in stone how the game will run, and what it will run. It'll probably be another 3 moths before we have the full details.

I have played this video (and one downloaded directly from developers website) and the presented graphic on "3DS" lags !!!
I have tried this on 3 computers + server, if it is only playback problem, but it lags everywhere.
This engine should be polished for speed, not beautifulness.

This will certainly fill a gap on the 3DS library: We have no decent 3rd person shooters on the system since Capcom didn't bring 3DS "Lost Planet" to the west. Looking forward the end result. Dare I say I would not even mind if something like this would be released on Wii U.

It always baffles me to see so many dumb, negative comments and hard to please people on NLife, and in the world in general, nowadays. Some countries/areas even seem to stand out, which is nothing to be proud of.
This game IS visually impressive, just as the article says, there's no debating. It's a friggin' eShop title and being able to pull this off with all the limits of both the eShop AND the 3DS is quite an achievement. So, from a technical point of view it is DEFINITELY impressive, and besides that in general as well, although it's partially up to your own taste, but not liking something doesn't mean that it looks bad.
All the criticism concerning the graphics is also very short sighted, seeing as this is still in development and therefore it's a beta, meaning improvements will more than likely be made during the coming months.
And the aim is indeed that it WILL run at 60fps in both 2D and 3D mode, as stated in this article:http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/10/vd_dev_aiming_for_60_frames_per_second_for_gears_of_war_style_3ds_shooter_ironfall
I just watched this video on a 42" plasma TV in HD and there's absolutely NOTHING wrong with it, other than what can be expected from a beta tech demo, so some glitches and stuttering are to be expected, same as it is expected that they will more than likely be ironed out before the final release.
/end of rant.
No offense people, but being open minded and positive is a good thing, you should try it sometime...

Cautiously optimistic about this one. Last time I saw an impressive engine demo I bought The Conduit I wouldn't say this has the best graphics though or am I the only one who played Resident Evil: Revelations?

@taffy Although somewhat of a let down, I still thought the Conduit was a mildly entertaining game in general. The effects on show here (IF they are all attainable in the final release) look to upstage the Conduit in just about any department, and remember: it's not even a full blown release but an eShop title, so that makes it even more of an achievement.I'm looking forward to them being successful and making more games with this engine and maybe even start on WiiU eShop versions of the same games in HD...

@taffy And yes, Resident Evil Revelations is impressive too, although a lot is happening inside corridors/closed off rooms and there are certain tricks used. IronFall is written entirely in assembly/machine code, making them able to access more resources from within the hardware directly and this is only their first demo, so it sure looks promising if this is what they've already achieved. They now probably have a full 6 months to tweak the game and any glitches so I'm quite optimistic that it will turn out to be something interesting to say the least.

Its funny if you consider, that today, mostly small studios produce the most ground braking things in the gaming industry while the big shots just sit there, twiddle their thumbs and cough up the ever same stuff over and over again.Dont get me wrong, a 3rd person cover shooter is not the reinvention of the wheel. But look at this:Both these guys and Shin´en push hardware above and beyond its limits with seemingly no effort compared to their miniscule team sizes. It was monolith soft, a rather small team, although with some experience under namcos wing (XenoSaga) was the one to put giants like Square and company to shame with Xenoblade. On paper, it had no chance agains the technical behemoth that was Final Fantasy XIII. In reality, it blew it out of the water in the technically inferior Wii hardware in scale, substance, content and effort. And they are about to do it again with X, as far as you can judge the game by the tiny snippets of trailers weve got yet.Ocasionally, such a title as this is very important., even if it doesnt turn out to be the best game ever. It sets new bars for other devs to measure themselfes on. And if a multi million dollar company with huge dev teams fall so low as to release the same game more than one (Fifa for instance) while a mini dev team manages to reach new technical achievements, you know what to think of the industry as a whole.

Ohhh man, this is gonna be on my priority buy list. I've been a huge Gearshead for the longest time and having a portable game that takes a lot of inspiration from it is just something I've wanted for the longest time (right next to actually having Gears on the 3DS xD)

Beautiful graphics, CPP compatibility, 60 FPS on the 3DS. Now I only hope it's gonna get a physical release so I can have a physical copy in my collection!

Awesome. I certainly hope they change their mind about multiplayer in the future. Heck, I'd gladly wait until Winter 2014 if that's all it'd take for online multiplayer to be put in.

What I really want to know is if or how they will incorporate StreetPass and/or SpotPass. I would assume SpotPass would be used for DLC (and maybe an online feature in the future), but I hope StreetPass would get a good looking in to.